Featured Game

Here's the third entry in my new Featured Game series. You will find on this page:

• A double board puzzle, using a position taken from the game. (Note: The diagrammed position is a critical position from the game, but not a forced mate. Try to find the "best" plan.)

• A downloadable annotated version of the game in .bpgn format

If you don't have the BPGN viewer on your machine, then head over to my first Featured Game, which has links that can be used to download the viewer.

Featured Game #3:

Swan Song

Oh, I had heard all the stories, but never believed half of them. These were stories that read like the wild exaggerations of country folklore: here was the consummate tactician, a fiery, temperamental player who could calculate at lightning speed, who could find the most well-concealed mate instantly, who could attack with such accuracy and ferocity that nobody could contain him -- nobody.

I remember I was drinking a glass of Welch's Grape Juice and eating Ritz crackers when that shout appeared in channel 24. (Funny how well you remember meaningless details when something truly remarkable happens.) The shout read "Chase!!!" This was quickly followed by a stream of shouts to channel 24 -- "It's Chase!!", "Chase is here!!" -- filling my computer screen and sending my message log into a wild forward scroll. Then Chase himself sent the message "hi guys", a perfectly ordinary message that seemed extraordinarily important, since, after all, it was Chase himself who had sent it.

A match involving Chase was quickly formed -- when you are a Legend, you don't have to advertise for a partner or ask for opponents, they come to you. Chase played six games that day, February 13, 1999, winning five of them. Our featured game this month is the last of those games.

After winning this game, Chase politely complimented his opponents for some "great stuff" and signed off. He has not played bughouse on the Internet since.

Now, some will scoff and say Chase does not deserve to be exalted if he does not play, and maybe they're right. Still, no one can deny there is a certain mystique about Chase, the attacking genius who quit when he was the World's highest rated bughouse player. Perhaps someday the bughouse bug will bite him once more, and we'll all be treated again to Chase's brilliant combinative play, but until that day happens, here's it is: Chase's Swan Song.

NO3 02:29*	JKiller 02:42
dani 02:41	Chase 02:30*
* indicates player to move next